The field of this invention relates to construction of guns and more particularly to a gun which is designed to propel a liquid containing a frangible projectile which is designed to break upon coming into contact with the intended target.
The use of marking guns is well-known. Within a marking gun there is employed a projectile which is generally in the shape of a marble. This projectile is constructed of a thin wall which is to readily break upon being propelled against a target. Typical construction for the wall of the projectile would be a gelatin. Within the wall of the projectile is contained a quantity of a liquid such as a colored paint. A typical color would be red.
In the past, it has been common to use marking guns in conjunction with wild animal management. These guns have been utilized to mark a single animal from a vehicle such as a jeep or a helicopter to assist the animal management person in counting of the wild animals, herding of the wild animals, or other similar desired procedures.
Within recent years, this type of a marking gun has begun to be used by human beings in other than animal management. The usage of this type of gun has to do with "war games" in which the human beings are divided into a plurality of groups. These groups are free to roam within a given geographical area and, upon one member of one group coming upon a member of another group, either member can fire a projectile at the other member. If one of the members become "hit" with a "paint ball", the hit member can now no longer continue to play the "game". The group that has the last remaining "surviving" member wins the game. It is to be understood that, normally, the paint ball does not cause injury to the human being. Although, it is possible that a bruise will result.
Within the prior art, the guns that have been designed to shoot these paint balls have been capable of only shooting one paint ball at a time with a manual cocking of the firing mechanism being required. There has not been known to utilize a valving mechanism which will permit semi-automatic firing of the paint balls which would eliminate the need for manual cocking of the gun to the firing position. Therefore, semi-automatic firing of a gun would permit a greater number of the paint balls to be fired within a short period of time.